Grapple rules...

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Lursi
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Grapple rules...

Post by Lursi » Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:33 pm

What is the physical defense of a character that is grappled?

This tank of obsidiman that grapples the guy and oops, rolls over him (for no damage?) or just kneels on his neck(Just Shiatsu!Insurance pays!)

Ok, let's say the obsidiman is just holding him for extended interrogation...and say the victim is stubborn...and the dwarf decides to cut this poor player souls throat.

What to resolve except a desparate try to free the grapple? An attack throw?

I know that the player should not die lightly but I find him rather trapped and his enemies don't need to be high circle or even adept to pull this off against a novice without unarmed combat.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

ChrisDDickey
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by ChrisDDickey » Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:18 am

The physical defense of the grappled player remains the same, and opponents must still hit that physical defense, and his armor still applies to attacks made by third parties. Specifically, it is assumed not that the person grappling is holding his target still and helpless, but that the two of them are wrestling around. I almost would have said "rolling around" except that a successful grappling attack does not automatically knock the target down.

Grappling can be a very useful and dangerous tactic in some circumstances, but practically speaking, if a gang of people are attacking one person, it is more common that they just all beat upon the target instead of one person holding the target in a grapple and the rest beating upon him. However, like I said, they could, and it is a good way to kill a target.

Lets use your scenario and assign some numbers and go by rounds.
Guy has PD of 8, no Unarmed combat skill but a STR of 4 and a DEX of 6. He has Physical Armor of 5.
Tank has Unarmed combat Talent of 10.
Dwarf has melee talent of 8.

Round 1, Guy and Dwarf declare melee attacks. Tank declares a grapple attack. Dwarf wins inititive, and makes a melee attack against Guys PD of 8, as normal, damage as normal. Tank goes next in initiative and rolls his unarmed combat Talent with karma. Since this is a grapple attack, an extra success is needed to avoid failure, so his real target number is 8 + 5 = 13. Lets say he rolls a 20. The grapple succeeds. His other success has no additional effect. No damage of any sort is rolled.
On Guy's action, he is not allowed to make a melee attack (his declared action). His action is automatically changed to an attempt to break the grapple. To break the grapple he needs to roll a Target Number of 10 (the Unarmed Combat Step number of "Tank", the guy grappling him). He may use ether his Unarmed Combat skill/talent or his STR. He does not have Unarmed Combat, and his STR is only step 4. However Unarmed Combat can be used untrained, so he is best off defaulting to his raw DEX step (untrained unarmed combat), step 6. He rolls it, but fails to roll a 10 or greater.

Round 2. Tank needs to use his standard action every round maintaining the grapple. He may not use any actions that require a standard action to interrogate. But may use free actions to talk, threaten, etc. Plus any Talents that are not standard actions. Guy probably uses his standard action every round to attempt to break the grapple. Lets assume he fails each time. Dwarf may use his standard action any way he wants. Once again, it is not that the Tank is holding the Guy still, they are rolling around wrestling.

Round N. After a while, the dwarf gets tired of the fruitless interrogation, and decides to just attempt to kill Guy. Guy still has a PD of 8, and 5 points of Physical Armor. The dwarf must roll to hit PD 8. Failure means that he did not get a clean strike into the guys in the grapple. If he hits, he rolls damage and reduces it by Guys 5 points of armor. Tank needs to continue spending his standard action to maintain the grapple. Guy still can't attack Tank nor Dwarf, but can still do nothing but attempt to break the grapple. It might take a while for Dwarf to kill Guy, but unless Guy can break the grapple, they should eventually accomplish it.


And yes, escaping grapples is a very good reason to have have the unarmed combat skill. In fact, for many warriors and whatnot that always have lots of weapons on them, it is practically the ONLY reason to ever need the unarmed combat skill. But there are many monsters that like to grapple, and knowing unarmed combat has saved many a PC from an early grave.

Lursi
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by Lursi » Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:42 pm

Hm..
It probably needs more successes to do something with unarmed combat, it should however be more than just a necessary evil to use a claw hand.

Once you manage to close-in on a guy with a two handed sword, ( dangerous and exposing to the unarmed guy) he should be able to do more than just holding him.

At least, he should be able to attack further while he is holding him.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by Slimcreeper » Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:56 pm

Could house rule something, but this is a great place for a knack, if you've gotten the companion. It may already be one! I don't have my copy in front of me.

Lursi
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by Lursi » Wed Jun 20, 2018 5:19 pm

In EDC there is head butt, pin down and mighty throw.

One can argue about the last one, it is fun, but our obsidiman really threw ridiculously big opponents onto their smaller minions. Results are really ugly.
The first two however would have been worth consideration.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

ChrisDDickey
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by ChrisDDickey » Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:53 pm

Lursi wrote:
Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:42 pm
At least, he should be able to attack further while he is holding him.
What you are doing in a grapple is keeping an opponent from doing anything else. That is quite an accomplishment. Doing damage on top of that would make grappling too powerful, and there would be little point in using a weapon because grappling would be clearly better in most situations.
As it is, unarmed combat is flexible. If you want to do damage you can just punch and kick him. If you want to keep him from acting, you grapple him.

and once again, once you close with the guy with a two handed sword and you grapple him, you keep him from using his two handed sword, probably for quite a while. And that is a big thing.

Lursi
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by Lursi » Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:40 pm

Hm. You have a point there. It is already an achievement to deny a warrior his many attacks.

I just remembered a few incidents at my martial arts lesson when people were held in a pretty punishing way that did not leave them many degrees of freedom except wiggling the small toe. Not even thinking of evading a third party with a spear.

Thanks for thinking along.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Panda
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Re: Grapple rules...

Post by Panda » Wed Jun 20, 2018 9:09 pm

Chris pretty much has the right of it. Keep in mind, the goal here is a fun game, not a simulation of the real world.

There's a noticeable reduction in abilities which entirely deny actions, or at least make said abilities less accessible. While there are numerous creatures which initiate grappling, there is also the Pry Loose special maneuver to go along with it. The goal there is to make the combat more exciting, interesting, and interactive.

Knacks (particularly special maneuvers) are the place where further developments to grappling will show up. Right now there's Eye Gouge. It's a general area I approach cautiously to keep the balance right, and with access to Body Blade and Claw Shape, unarmed combat isn't inherently low damage. This means the ability to have a free attack in addition to locking down an opponent becomes fraught with peril. This is an area we're working on, but it's honestly a low priority when compared to other projects. Grappling gets notoriously complex the further down the simulation road you go, to the point where characters who engage in grappling (often because it's really effective) are a source of irritation for everyone else because that complexity leads to constantly referencing rules and lots of subsystems. I would rather not expand it at all than go down that path.

There's also concerns for adept v. environment (creatures, Horrors, etc.) and adept v. adept and how these can be remarkably different scenarios with regard to numerous different mechanical interactions. Particularly when it comes to attribute Steps, where adepts tend to have a narrow range (6-8), while the environment... doesn't. This disparity sometimes keeps me up at night; spells being the biggest offenders. It has to be effective against the environment, but can't be too effective against adepts because it can be turned on players or used against other adepts. Sigh.

Hopefully this has been helpful and provided some insight.

Best regards,

Morgan

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